What is an Elective
Electives are courses that do not count towards major or university requirements, but they count towards your overall credits towards graduation. Students at UConn need at least 120 credits to graduate, and across almost all majors, elective courses are included in the plan of study since major requirements alone will not meet your credit minimum. Electives encourage exploration, and allow you to explore a new interest, theme, or topic—consider turning those interests into minors or new skills like a language!
Why did my advisor recommend an elective?
While advisors often recommend major requirements or common curriculum/general education courses, they may also recommend electives for a variety of reasons.
- Electives count towards graduation requirements. Typically, majors will require at least 30 credits of electives, though, this can vary based on programs.
- Sometimes, major or university requirements close prior to when students register, so in addition to simply having space to look for electives, they can also be great substitutes when major/university requirements become unavailable.
- Electives can also encourage exploration, advisors may recommend elective courses to help explore majors or parallel plan pathways.
- Advisors may recommend any elective, an elective to explore, or a 2000+ level elective, so be sure to pay attention to your advisor’s specific recommendations when selecting an elective.
What courses count as electives?
Because an elective is just a credit towards graduation, an elective can be any course. While it can be a course that is listed as a content area or topic of inquiry course, it does not have to be. An elective can be a course across any department or any level—so long as you meet the requirements for it. It’s important to always check reserved requirement or other registration restrictions.
How should I look for an elective?
There is no large list of elective courses available, since any course can technically count as an elective. Across all of these methods, be mindful of checking for reserved seats and other registration restrictions. Some ways we would encourage students to look:
- If you are interested in applying to a competitive major, consider your parallel plan interests. What majors do you want to consider exploring if not admitted? Are there pre-requisites you need to take? Can you explore an upper-level elective? Is there a course in another department that has a similar theme or topic?
- Have you considered a minor? Look through a list of the minors at UConn here. Are there any pre-requisites? Any minor courses that you want to take to explore?
- Are there any TOI courses that look interesting but the area is already satisfied? Consider taking an extra course from a TOI area as an elective.
- Use the class search features to your advantage on the classes website! Using the keyword search, you can search through departments, titles, or course descriptions to find a keyword such as business, law, health, public, government, data, etc. Always be sure to filter by term, campus, undergraduate, and open.
- Use the class search features to your advantage on the classes website! By searching a different departments’ classes, you can explore a variety of courses they offer. Many departments, especially those in the humanities and social sciences, allow students at various levels to take “upper level” courses regardless of whether you are a first, second, or third year student. Always be sure to filter by term, campus, undergraduate, and open.
- Check out variable topic or special topic classes! Variable topics classes are offered across many different departments with many unique offerings. You can use the keyword search to find “variable” or “special” topics classes.
- Look for flyers around campus! Sometimes faculty are teaching variable/special topics classes or new courses and you’ll see flyers across campus marketing the new course.
- If you are first or second year student, consider taking a UNIV 1820 course.
- Check the ACES updates e-mail every Monday to see if there are any featured electives in the “course offerings” section.